


The One With Julie's Hairbrush

by UnsaidIvy



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28813410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnsaidIvy/pseuds/UnsaidIvy
Summary: Julie finds herself getting carried away with her new favorite song. And if there's one thing she knows, it's how to put on a show. She just wasn't excepting an audience this time.Cute short Juke One-shot cause I needed it.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

When Julie got back from school she was surprised to find the house empty. Carlos had baseball practice on Tuesdays so he wouldn’t be home till dinner time, but her dad was usually there by the time she arrived. 

As she turned on the lights she noticed the small piece of paper on the table.

_Sweetie,  
One of the guys from work called in sick and I have to cover for him.  
I’ll be back at 8 PM.  
There are leftovers in the fridge.  
Love you,  
Dad_

Grabbing her backpack from the floor, where it had been carelessly dropped moments before, she headed upstairs to her room. Closing the door behind her she walked straight towards the window, trying to catch a glimpse of her mom’s old studio. It was totally quiet. _No sign of life whatsoever_ , she thought, smirking like an idiot at her own private joke.  
The last few days had felt like a rollercoaster. 

One minute Julie was just trying to get through another bad day, in what seemed like an endless succession of bad days, and the next she was having to deal with the fact that there were now three dead boys living in her garage. 

Even now that she was fairly sure she hadn’t completely lost it, the whole situation still sounded ridiculous. Like something straight out of one of those teen movies she and Flynn religiously watched on every sleepover. 

And yet, she knew it was real. They were real. Alex, Reggie, and Luke were as real to her as they could be. Despite having come to terms with this new reality by now, she had really begun questioning her own sanity at first. 

The night she found the old demo and unknowingly released the guys from the dark room they had apparently been stuck in for the past 25 years, she spent hours searching the internet, desperately trying to prove to herself that maybe she wouldn’t have to have herself locked up in a lunatic asylum just yet. She’d come across multiple articles in news archives from 1995. There were a couple discreet columns that described them as a group of promising newcomers on the rise, set to take the music world by storm. But most were dated from July and focused on the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of three young musicians the night they were meant to become legends. 

The band called Sunset Curve had indeed existed. They had indeed tragically died at 17, right before their performance at the Orpheum in Hollywood. And there was no doubt that the boys that stared back at her from the newspaper picture on the screen were the same ones that had materialized in her garage hours before, looking exactly the same as they did back then. 

It took Julie a while to process her findings. Sure, she’d been frightened at first. One could expect nothing else given that all her previous knowledge of ghosts consisted of what she’d learned from the horror movies she’d been dared to watch on occasion and that usually had her sleeping with the lights on for weeks. 

But looking through the articles on her laptop, she’d felt nothing but sadness. _Just another proof life is not fair._ She knew all too well what it was like to have someone die before their time. When her mom passed away a year back she’d been angry. How could someone so good, so kind, and with so much to give to the world be taken from it just like that? Her mom had always been her role model. She was brilliant in every way and Julie had wanted nothing more than to follow in her footsteps. Then that all changed. 

Snapping out of the memories she’d found herself lost in Julie crossed the room to her dresser, gathering some things before heading to the bathroom. It had been a long day and she could really use a shower before she went down to the garage to check on the guys. It had become kind of a new routine. Whenever she wasn’t busy doing homework or spending time with her family, pretending to be a normal person who doesn’t have ghosts for friends, she’d spent most of her free time in the garage working on song ideas.

Sometimes the guys would get bored and casually pop up in the living room while her father was watching a game, or sit on the kitchen counter at breakfast and stare longingly at her cereal. But overall, they did seem to be making an effort to adhere to her idea of boundaries. They had also developed the habit of knocking before stepping through her bedroom door like it wasn’t there, which she was very thankful for. 

Once she was done with her shower, Julie headed back to the bedroom to get dressed in her favorite loungewear combo of sweats and a cute hoodie. As she finished dressing she went to grab her phone from the bedside table where it had been charging, catching a glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror. Her hair was looking wild and she’d definitely have to at least try to do something about that. Grabbing her earbuds, a brush, and her favorite detangler Julie stood in front of the mirror carefully brushing through her wet curls. 

She listened to a couple random songs from her playlist at first, humming along, but soon she felt like searching for a specific song she’d just recently added and was quickly becoming a favorite. She hit play and immediately heard the familiar voice. It was a really good song, she had to admit. It’d been stuck in her head since the first time she heard it and she had been disappointed when she failed to find it online. She was so used to streaming and to having any song at her fingertips she’d forgotten there was a time not so long ago when that wasn’t really an option. She got to have a taste of the good old days when she sneakily took the CD from the garage and ripped all the songs to her laptop before adding them to the playlist on her phone.

The catchy rock tune was still playing in her ears and Julie was finding it hard not to move to the rhythm. Taking the hairbrush in her hand she suddenly found herself singing along to the lyrics she had memorized by now. 

It had been a long time since Julie found herself enjoying music so much. For a moment she felt like a little kid again, careless and free, jumping around and busting some of her silliest, most embarrassing dance moves, still holding her hairbrush like a microphone. 

She was so lost in her impromptu bedroom concert she failed to notice the person that stood leaning against the door, with an amused look on his face.  
Turning around as if to clap along with an imaginary crowd, just as the song reached the bridge, Julie finally saw him. The moment their eyes met the brush dropped from her hand and she let out a startled scream. 

“Shh! I thought we were past that”, Luke said taking one quick step from the wall, with his hands held out in front of him. 

“I thought you’d learned to knock!”, Julie replied, shooting him an angry look. 

“I did knock! You just didn’t hear me.”, he shrugged. A mischievous grin spread across his face. “I didn’t know you were such a fan, Julie! I would have offered to sign your arm or something”

“Ugh. Get out!”, grabbing a pillow from the bed Julie threw it straight at his head. It went straight through him and hit the wall, as he stood there laughing. 

She turned her back to him, trying to hide the red shade that she could feel rushing through her cheeks. 

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come in” he admitted. She took a quick glance at him over her shoulder, turning away once again as soon as she met his eyes.

“No, you shouldn’t. Like I said, boundaries”, she said over her shoulder, still trying not to look at him. She found it hard to think straight when he looked at her the way he was looking at her now. 

“I know. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just came up here to see if you wanted to come down to the garage. The guys and I have been working on a new song and I- we wanted to know what you think”, he gave her an apologetic smile. “I knocked but you didn’t reply. And then I recognized the song and curiosity got the best of me. How did you get it to play on your phone?”, he asked half out of genuine curiosity, half in a clear attempt to get her to stop being angry. 

“I got it from the demo”, Julie admitted, turning to face him.

“Sweet! I mean, it’s really cool you can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want. Though I still like the idea of CDs better. It’s nice to have something you can touch” 

“Yeah, it would be”, she said out loud before she was able to catch herself. Luke frowned for a second, unsure of what she meant. Julie took the chance to quickly change the subject “So, let’s check out that song you were telling me about, shall we? You can do your ghost magic trick and head down. I’ll meet you there in a second.” 

He offered her a bright smile. 

“Sure thing, boss. Oh, by the way…” he paused for a second, with the most earnest look on his face. “Knowing you like our music so much means more to me than I can say” And then he was gone. 

Julie stood there for a second, slightly taken aback by his words. A smile spread suddenly across her face, though she wasn’t entirely sure what she was smiling about. All she knew at that moment was that she couldn’t wait to get to the garage where she knew Luke and the guys would be waiting for her.


	2. The One Where Luke Did Knock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke finds himself standing outside Julie's room just in time to catch her jamming to her new favorite song - one he would recognize anywhere. Who knew she was such a fan. 
> 
> Luke's POV of the previous chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is at last! Luke's POV.  
> Hope you like it!

Luke was lying on the couch, his couch, absent-mindedly strumming his guitar. He’d spent most of the day working on a new song with the guys but he still felt like something was missing, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.  
  
“Ooh, what if it went like ‘We’re making up for lost time. Still dead, but that’s fine’?”, Reggie blurted out, looking like someone who’d just hit the jackpot. Luke could practically sense Alex roll his eyes all the way from across the studio where he was sitting at his drum kit.  
  
“Yeah. Maybe not, Reginald.” Alex voiced the words they were both thinking.  
  
“Well, I personally think it’s a killer lyric.” Reggie insisted, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive way. Reggie had always had a peculiar sense of humor to say the least but Luke felt like the puns were getting a bit out of hand lately.  
  
“Yeah, you’ve been spending too much time with Ray.”  
  
“Oh, c’mon. That dude is awesome! Those dad jokes he keeps making at breakfast? Highly underrated!”  
  
It had become kind of their new routine. Turns out being unable to sleep gets old after a while. Nighttime was the most boring part of the day. There was just too much time and too little to do. Sure, they could spend some time reading or writing songs or going for midnight strolls on the beach, but that too got old after a couple of weeks. And it’s not like they could play without risking having the neighbors call the cops on them. So most of the time they’d just hang around.  
  
Sometimes they would listen to music, trying to catch up on what they’d missed in the past 25 years or revisiting their favorites from back in the day. Other times they’d just sit and talk until the sun came up. But every morning they would poof to the kitchen just in time for breakfast. Watching Ray cook all those pancakes, eggs and bacon while knowing they couldn’t taste any of it was the definition of masochism. Even Carlos’s soggy cereal looked tempting at times. But they still enjoyed the sense of normalcy it brought. And it gave them a chance to spend some time with Julie before she left for school. Even if most days that meant sitting on the kitchen counter and watching her run around looking for her shoes with a piece of toast stuffed in her mouth. It had been a long time since Luke had felt like he belonged but the Molina house was quickly starting to feel like home.  
  
Julie was definitely not a morning person but her big brown eyes always seemed to light up a bit the moment she saw them as she came downstairs. When it was time for her to leave Julie would offer them a smile and a quick wave, and then she’d be gone until noon, leaving them to their own devices for the next few hours. Occasionally Luke would follow her out the door and casually try to bring up the benefits of skipping class every now and then, only to be left disappointed when Julie would immediately turn down the idea by implying that she would actually like to graduate, unlike some people.  
  
His lips twisted slightly into a crooked smile as he recalled the way she’d walked away laughing at his pretend-offended expression.  
  
“Earth to Luke?” Reggie’s voice brought him back to the present moment. “You haven’t said a word in the past 20 minutes. That’s very OOC.”  
  
“OOC? What’s that supposed to mean?” Luke turned his head slightly to stare at his friend with a raised eyebrow.  
  
“Out of character. I’ve been reading a lot of Star Wars fanfiction”, Reggie admitted. Out of the three Reggie had turned out to be the more modern technology inclined and sure seemed to be having a lot of fun discovering the full potential of the Internet. “Care to tell us what’s on your mind, Young Luke? Though I think we can guess.” Reggie shot Alex a knowing look. The meaning of it, however, was lost on Luke.  
  
“Dude, I’m literally older than you.” That was a fact. Even if they weren’t exactly aging anymore, Luke was still a full three months older than Reggie.  
  
“That’s not the point. The point is something’s on your mind and it’s not the song we were just writing.” Reggie pointed out, wiggling his eyebrows like a cartoon character.  
  
“I was actually trying to come up with something better than ‘Still dead, but that’s fine’. I mean, seriously?” Luke replied defensively.  
  
“Hey! My idea was brilliant. Very tongue in cheek, if you ask me”, Reggie argued crossing his arms across his chest and looking from Luke to Alex as if waiting for at least one of them to agree.  
  
“No, totally. We can even name the song ‘No, seriously. We’re three dead dudes’, Reg.” Luke grinned, appreciating Alex’s sarcasm.  
  
“Haters gonna hate, I guess.” Reggie pouted a bit, and raised both his hands in defeat.  
  
“Julie should be back soon. We can just ask her. Her ideas are usually pretty good.” Alex suggested, ignoring a still pouting Reg. He was right. Julie did have some pretty good songwriting skills. If he was being honest, Luke couldn’t think of a better songwriting partner. He loved writing with the guys but writing with Julie was different. They were able to feed off each other’s ideas in what felt like a truly symbiotic process.  
  
Taking a quick glance at his watch, Luke nodded in agreement and went back to strumming his guitar, playing around with a few different variations of the chord progression they’d come up with that afternoon. Alex and Reggie intuitively joined in and they went over the new song a couple more times, trying to perfect it.  
  
Half an hour later, Luke finally stood up from the couch, setting his guitar aside. Time seemed to be moving at a particularly slow pace today and he was growing more impatient by the minute. He’d always been the restless kind, so he brushed it off as him just being eager to finish the song.  
  
“Julie should be home by now, right?” He asked his bandmates.  
  
“Yeah, I think I heard the front door closing a while ago” Reggie replied. “She’s probably grabbing a bite before coming down here. I know I would. Have you seen the stuff Ray keeps in the fridge? He had these mini muffins the other day and let me tell you, they looked de-li-ci-ous.” Reggie had a point. Those mini-muffins did, in fact, look pretty good.  
  
“I think one of us should just poof up to the house to check if Julie’s back and ask her to come down. That one missing verse is driving me nuts.” Luke tried to keep his tone casual.  
  
“Right. One of us totally should” Alex agreed and the slight note of sarcasm in his voice had Luke rolling his eyes before he even finished the sentence. “Hey, Reg. Do you think we can find any volunteers?”  
  
“Yeah, I could…OH. Right. Hmm.” Reg pretended to ponder for a second, before raising his hand like a kid who’s just a little too happy he knows the answer to the teacher’s question. “Look, Luke is already standing there. Maybe he should go.”  
  
Alex nodded in agreement. “Excellent point, Reginald.” As he spoke the words, the drummer made an extravagant gesture with both hands, inviting Luke to go ahead.  
“Ah, shut up. Both of you.” Luke shook his head in defeat just as the other two burst into laughter, and quickly poofed out of the studio.  
  
The house was exceptionally quiet. Luke quickly looked around the first floor but there was no sign of Julie so he decided to try upstairs.  
  
A second later he stood in front of her bedroom door and instantly knew she was there. He raised his hand and knocked a couple times, waiting for a reply. Instead, he heard something he wasn’t quite expecting. Julie was singing. Not only that, Julie was singing… his song? He leaned closer to the door just in time to catch the words “Kept on climbing, till our stars collided”. He hesitated for a second. Julie had made it clear boundaries were important, especially when it came to her room and Luke and the guys had been careful to always ask for permission before barging in when Julie was there. That seemed like a very reasonable rule. But this was just too… good. Curiosity got the best of him when Julie reached the chorus.  
  
He pushed his head through the door, just wanting to catch a quick glimpse of what was happening behind it. What he saw had him mesmerized. Julie stood in front of the mirror, moving to the song that was clearly playing in her earbuds. Her wet hair, looking much darker and longer than usual, cascaded down her shoulders to her waist. A grin spread across Luke’s face the second he noticed she was holding a hairbrush as if it were a microphone, as she softly sang the words he’d written years ago. He could have sworn that song had never sounded better.  
  
Taking a step forward he walked into the room and stood leaning against the wall watching the scene before him. Julie didn’t notice him at first, too lost in the music to actually pay attention to anything else. So he just stood there, catching his lip between his teeth to keep himself from laughing or singing along with her.  
  
Just as the song got to the chorus, Julie turned around and started to clap along with what Luke could only assume was an imaginary crowd. One second later her eyes finally met his and she looked like a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide open and lips slightly parted as the brush she’d been holding hit the floor and a high-pitched scream filled the air.  
  
Startled, Luke took one quick step from the wall, holding his hands out in front of him.  
  
“Shh! I thought we were past that” He pointed out as his mind drifted to the moment they’d materialized in Julie’s garage a couple weeks ago.  
  
“I thought you’d learned to knock!” She shouted angrily at him. He could see the shade of red starting to spread across her cheeks.  
  
“I did knock! You just didn’t hear me.” That was a fact. No rules had been broken. Kind of. She narrowed her eyes as she glared at him and he couldn’t help it but to tease her just a bit. “I didn’t know you were such a fan, Julie! I would have offered to sign your arm or something”.  
  
He’d actually signed someone’s arm before. Weeks before they booked the gig at the Orpheum they’d played a packed club in West Hollywood. It had been their largest crowd so far and soon after they left the stage a girl had come up to him, sharpie in hand, and requested he signed her arm. Which he promptly agreed to – after discretely fist-bumping Reggie.  
  
“Ugh. Get out!” Julie groaned and a split second later a pillow was thrown towards his head with incredible precision. The fact that it went straight through him however only seemed to annoy Julie further and this time he couldn’t keep from laughing at her expression.  
  
Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of red and she turned her back to him in a clear attempt to hide it.  
  
Luke was hit by a sudden wave of shame and guilt. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. Not only had he been the one to invade her privacy, but now he was also making it worse by acting like a douchebag.  
  
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come in.” He said earnestly, giving her an apologetic look when she briefly turned around.  
  
“No, you shouldn’t. Like I said, boundaries” Julie shot back over her shoulder, avoiding his gaze.  
  
“I know. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just came up here to see if you wanted to come down to the garage. The guys and I have been working on a new song and I- we wanted to know what you think”, he offered her a cautious smile. “I knocked but you didn’t reply. And then I recognized the song and curiosity got the best of me.” It was true. He’d never meant to make her feel uncomfortable or like he had abused her trust. Hence why he now felt like kicking himself for doing just that. Julie remained silent for a second and Luke went into panic mode, asking her the first thing that popped into his mind in an attempt to clear the air. “How did you get it to play on your phone?”  
  
“I got it from the demo”, Julie admitted, turning to face him. He let out a sigh of relief which he hoped she didn’t notice.  
  
“Sweet! I mean, it’s really cool you can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want.” So far, that had seemed like one of the best things about modern-day technology. He had been completely blown away upon learning about music apps and streaming services. Any song you could think of, one button away. It seemed like the stuff of dreams. However, he’d been raised on vinyl records, cassettes, and eventually CDs. To him, music had always had a physical element. Something you could grasp. So call him old-fashioned, but that’s something he would always appreciate. “Though I still like the idea of CDs better. It’s nice to have something you can touch”  
  
“Yeah, it would be” Julie’s response caught him by surprise. He frowned in confusion. There was something about the way she’d said the words. Luke could’ve sworn there was a hint of something in there somewhere, though he couldn’t quite figure out was it was. His trail of thought was quickly interrupted as Julie spoke again. “So, let’s check out that song you were telling me about, shall we? You can do your ghost magic trick and head down. I’ll meet you there in a second.”  
  
He smiled at her as he realized he’d all but forgotten about the song.  
  
“Sure thing, boss. Oh, by the way…” he paused for a second, choosing his next few words carefully. “Knowing you like our music so much means more to me than I can say”. He admitted at last. The moment he’d heard Julie’s voice singing the words to the old Sunset Curve song as he stood outside her room something clicked inside him and he’d suddenly been filled with a sense of happiness and pride. He knew she liked their new music, but this was different. This was a piece of his past. A different side of him, back when he was younger and alive and full of hope and dreams. Hearing Julie sing that song somehow made him feel like that all over again.  
  
He quickly poofed out of the room, afraid he would say too much and ruin the moment if he stayed any longer. He stood outside the garage, trying to get his feelings in check before he stepped through the doors. Julie would be there soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos/ commented on the previous chapter. I wasn't originally going to write a second one, but I was so grateful for your support I just knew I had to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo! 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed that. It's the first fanfic I've written in years. I just needed my fix of Juke, okay? 
> 
> Meant for it to be a one-shot but now I'm actually considering adding another chapter from Luke's POV. Please let me know if that's something you'd like to see!


End file.
